California Governor Edmund Brown Jr. recently signed a new law into effect designed to protect the privacy of social media users. Governor Brown signed into law Assembly Bill 1844 and Senate Bill 1349. These new laws will prevent universities and employers from requiring that applicants give up e-mail or social media account passwords.

Over the last year, there has been a significant increase in the number of job applicants and college students being forced to surrender passwords to social network sites such as Facebook and others to be considered for acceptance to the college or to be offered a job. Privacy advocates argue that this is a clear violation of privacy.

Governor Brown said, "The Golden State is pioneering the social media revolution, and these laws will protect all Californians from unwarranted invasions of their personal social media accounts."

Assembly Bill 1844 prohibits employers from demanding usernames, passwords, or any other information related to social media accounts from employees and any other job applicants. The bill also bans employers from firing or disciplining employees who refused to divulge this information. The law does not provide protections for passwords or other information used to access employer-issued electronic devices.

Senate Bill 1349 adds a similar privacy policy for post-secondary education students for social media. The bill stipulates the public and private institutions can't require students, prospective students, and student groups to disclose usernames, passwords, or other private information for social media. Senate Bill 1349 passed without opposition in the legislature.

Supporters of Assembly Bill 1844 said that it is a common sense measure needed to clarify questionable business practices.

You must work at a lot of gas stations. The "just get another job" argument doesn't fly in career fields involving more specialized disciplines. When you have a. An economy with a dearth of jobs and b. Employers abusing current or potential employees because of a., then yes laws like this are needed.

I'm certainly not going to go to my government overlords and demand they go do my dirty work for me. The "just get another job" argument does too work. I didn't like my last job, for a variety of reasons, so I left. And before that, I left. All the way back to my first paper route. Unless you've worked the same job your whole life, or only left because of your employer's choosing, you've also taken part in my wild and crazy idea.

So because Sudafed (the real stuff that they make meth out of, not the crappy replacements) only helps the symptoms of a cold without actually attacking the virus that causes it, we should suffer through the sneezing and postnasal drip while the virus runs its course?

Given that you can't get over the cold (the bad economy) overnight, how is it a bad idea to treat the runny nose (employer abuse) palliatively in the meantime? Sheesh, it's like people think we live in some kind of ideal world, here...